The effects of legislation reform on female representation in the Spanish political elite

Our paper aims to discuss the effect of the new gender equality legislation on Spanish parliamentarian elites. The law on gender equality was approved in 2007. Since them, there have been elections in all the electoral arenas, with strong consequences for the female representation. However, these effects have experienced different degrees amongst political arenas and political parties. Our hypothesis is that the new legislation has fostered female equality, although other factors might have conditioned this representation as well: party recruitment strategies, previous paths of female representation, and type of political arenas – particularly, their degree of visibility and their relevance in the policy-making process. We will check it with data of Spanish representatives in national houses (Congreso and Senado) and the European Parliament since 1977 to 2010, through looking for variations along time in the patterns of recruitment by sex of MPs and MEPs. In this respect, we will also pay attention not only to the quantitative aspects of the phenomenon (distribution of positions and turnover), but also to qualitative variations in the characteristics of MPs (socio-demographic and previous professional and political background, including durations in previous positions).